Food and biotechnology giants fighting against mandatory labeling of genetically engineered food (commonly known as GMOs) claim that it would have consumers fleeing their products. But the evidence just doesn’t back that up.

A new study shows that implementing simple good stewardship practices for farmland – such as planting cover crops of grasses during the off-season and using fertilizer with greater care – could reduce the amount of agricultural pollution fouling the Gulf of Mexico by 30 percent.

A new report shows that some farmers could receive larger payments under newly implemented crop insurance programs than they would have through the discredited -- and now defunct -- direct payments system.

A mega-farm is a colloquial term, not an official designation used by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nor any other agricultural authority for that matter. Yet it’s often bantered about in reference to the Corn Belt—the corn-producing states in the Midwest—where the consolidation of commodity farms continues at an unprecedented pace.

Some companies are so hell-bent on avoiding oversight of their genetically engineered crops that they are using new technique to avoid any government review of the safety and environmental impact of their products.

The technique – called gene “editing” – allows companies to create all sorts of new plants and crops.

The American Farm Bureau Federation believes that it’s simply cheaper to pollute America’s rivers and streams – and pass the cost on to water utilities like the Des Moines Water Works – than it is to adopt conservation practices that help reduce polluted runoff from farm fields.

Around the world, food production occupies more land than any other human activity (about 40 times the area of all cities and suburbs combined), uses more freshwater than anything else people do and is a major source of carbon pollution in the air and nitrogen pollution in the water.

So it should be obvious that the food choices we make in supermarkets, restaurants and in our homes have a big influence on the world around us. Making small changes in what we eat can have big environmental benefits.

Every year, EWG’s editors ask our colleagues on the EWG staff to tell us what they consider the Top 10 environmental stories of the year in each of the two topic areas covered by the two blogs on EWG’s website – Enviroblog and AgMag. All of us – from senior scientists to policy analysts to web designers to support staff and even management – get a chance to nominate as many stories as we want. From those two lists each staff member then votes for what she or he considers the three most important stories in each category.

In 2007, corn ethanol was offered up as an environmentally friendly alternative to gasoline. But nearly seven years to the day since Congress put it in play, we’re still not seeing the benefits. In fact, quite the opposite.

Some members of the U.S. Congress don’t want you to know how the food you eat strains natural resources. That’s the meaning of a statement attached to the omnibus federal spending bill Congress sent to President Obama last Saturday.

America needs a national labeling law for genetically engineered foods. That was the consensus of a majority of the members of Congress from both sides of the aisle during a well-attended subcommittee hearing Wednesday on the Food and Drug Administration’s role in regulating genetically modified food.

In what has become an annual ritual, Congress unveiled this week a massive spending bill to keep the government going, which includes provisions that would cut hundreds of millions of dollars from vital programs that protect our land and water.

A new study, published today (Dec 10th) in the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London shows that organic farmers can achieve yields nearly as large as their counterparts practicing conventional agriculture. And they can still cultivate crops without highly toxic pesticides and synthetic fertilizers that pollute groundwater and stimulate algae blooms that suffocate marine life.